According to TSA spokesman Nico Melendez, more than 3,000 pieces of luggage got caught in the mishap, causing many not to make it onto flights. The issue started at 6:45am and was finally resolved later that night, but that didn’t help the piles of bags stacked up in the parking lot. It also made for a lot of grumpy passengers.

"It's very stressful because I hope that everything that I packed is still in there after people have hand-checked it. And just that it gets there on time," Mindy McLarren told CNN affiliate KPHO. Others complained about the lack of a system in place to deal with such a situation.

Officers eventually switched to another system and brought in more bomb-sniffing dogs to handle the influx of bags. Officials also transported some of the bags to other airports to speed up the process of getting luggage back to owners.